


my dragonfly, my black-eyed fire

by shamyesapsoorap



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, Drabble, F/F, Fluff, Modern AU, One-Shot, flowershop au, hella short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 09:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3644832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamyesapsoorap/pseuds/shamyesapsoorap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke's working a hum-drum job, and she just wants to go home.  Of course, that's before Lexa shows up and tries to intimidate her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my dragonfly, my black-eyed fire

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from Richard Siken's divine "Snow and Dirty Rain," which reads thusly:
> 
> "My dragonfly,  
> my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing  
> for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw  
> and this is the map of my heart."
> 
> characters come from not me, obviously.

Clarke doesn't even look up when the door swings open. It's Sunday afternoon, her boss has _already_ taken off, and she's got a biology test coming up that she needs to study for – so she stays at the counter, flipping through her flashcards, and figures that whoever just walked in can find the roses okay on his own.

But it's not a _him_ , and Clarke looks up when a shadow falls across the sunlit counter. She has to squint against the afternoon sun to see a tall girl, with a thin unsmiling face and outrageously perfect eyeliner. She's intimidating.

Staring levelly at Clarke, the girl says, "I'm looking for a flower."

"Well, you've come to the right place," Clarke says, maybe a bit sharper than she intended, gesturing around her at Jordan's Emporium – the narrow room is humid and packed with colorful, odorous blooms.

"Not just any flower." The girl still hasn't blinked, and Clarke would be lying if she told you she wasn't just a little unnerved. "An _A_ _morphophallus titanum_."

"A corpse flower?" Clarke asks without missing a beat, and she can tell that the girl didn't expect her to know. She's caught off guard, but recovers quickly.

"Yes. A corpse flower."

Clarke stares at her for a moment, and the girl fidgets. Good. Clarke's quickly regaining control of the situation. That's more like it. She allows a small smile to tilt the corners of her mouth as she responds, thin-lipped, "No, we don't carry corpse flowers. Can I interest you in a _Phalaenopsis floresensis_? If you ask me, it's one of the foulest-smelling things in the store."

"Some people must like it, though. If you sell it."

Clarke doesn't miss the way the girl's face softens as she talks, like she can only focus on one thing at a time – her facade, or what she's saying. She looks surprisingly young. "Here, we have one," Clarke says, leading her over to a table full of orchids. "You can smell it yourself."

The girl sniffs the flower tentatively and makes a face. "Oooh, awful."

"Isn't it?" Clarke's standing as far away from the flower as possible to make it still feel as though she's in the conversation. She's distracted for a moment by the girl's hair, long and wavy, and her look of concentration as she leans toward the flower again, brow furrowed, eyes shut, and Clarke forgets herself. "Why do you want a bad flower?" she asks.

The girl stands again, face suddenly unfriendly. Her eyes are emotionless as she responds, "For my ex."

"Ah, he break up with you?" Clarke asks sympathetically. (She knows the answer, but there's no harm in checking.)

" _She_. Yes, she did." (There it is.)

"I'm sorry to hear it," Clarke says, back to professional. "Do you want me to ring the orchid up for you?"

The girl watches Clarke for a moment with those wide dark eyes, but Clarke's face is a careful mask. (At least, that's what she thinks.) "No," the girl says. "But I'll take this one." She plucks a yellow rose off the next table.

"Hmm, yellow. Unconventional choice." Clarke nods approvingly as she scans the rose's price tag. "I'm not sure it'll get the same message as a corpse flower across, though."

"It's not supposed to," she says, so quietly Clarke's not sure she's said anything at all. She pays with a twenty dollar bill, and Clarke counts out her change – but drops it, the coins bouncing noisily onto the counter and the floor beneath Clarke's feet.

"I'm so sorry!" she yelps, and kneels down on the pretense of picking up the coins. (What she's really doing is writing the word _Clarke_ and her phone number on the girl's receipt.)

Then she stands up, change and receipt in hand – and her face falls, because the girl's nowhere to be seen.

But the yellow rose is sitting in the tip jar.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [shamyesapsoorap.tumblr.com](http://www.shamyesapsoorap.tumblr.com), where I flail about all things The 100, and I will probably love you forever if you come talk to me.


End file.
